I talk a lot about Jesus, God's promises, and all sorts of questions that I hope will explore the work of the Holy Spirit. I use this space to try to unravel what God is doing in my life, and the lives of the people I care about. This is my life, and I write about it all the same.

Search

Short Stories are the worst.

I hate short stories. I hate them just about as much as I still can’t for the life of me explain artichokes. My mom told me they derive from thistles. What the actual frick.

No but seriously, I HATE short stories. If I had to explain the intricate and extremely spiteful reasoning behind it, I would try to leave it simple, and it would come out sounding like this:

“Short stories don’t have enough plot to really enjoy, they don’t have enough detail to actually savor and find something legitimately interest like, 99% of the time, and they are about as awkward as an almost mid-length haircut for people who just like small snapshots of beauty with a 5 minute attention span.”

I never thought about how little I like about how people selling writing as a whole until I started to share what I wrote. Now, I had shared it with friends here and there before (some more than others) waaaaay before, but man, we could do things so much better as somewhat legible, somewhat intelligent ppl that write.

When I first started writing, I never got why there were so many rules. It only gets worse in college, you guys. Why do we sacrifice creativity in the name of style?? Didn’t all that style have to come from somewhere a little less “eloquent”? Srsly. I don’t get it.

I don’t want to write you a dumb Haiku. Or whatever a Limmerick is. I don’t want to cite you 1000+ sources in a language no one speaks, and guess what? Most people don’t give two flying craps about the best of the world’s research if it sounds like the best of the world’s research.

I want something I can use now, something I can think is beautiful and give away for free and not really care who likes it. That is the writing I like. I think if I ever get like, famous enough to make any money, I would compromise with Capitalism and set up an endowed fund to distribute money in a sort of Philanthropic effort. Don’t ask me what form that would take, mostly I just think art should be free. It frees your soul, why wouldn’t we make that free access?

I mean, it’s great that people have a decent source of income, but to write well, you’ve gotta have good things to talk about, and some of that isn’t found in a bank account. Sorry. It’s like that moment in Spongebob where Squidward gets so terrifyly obese from eating Krabby Patties that he literally explodes. Mr. Krabbs should not have kept a vault of somehow imprenetrable and eternal Krabby Patties. Spongebob even warns Squidward not to eat them, that they would store up in his arteries until something omnisciently awful happened. Well now, look who’s Krabby Patties have turned them into a symbol of death Squidward? Yours. You should have listened to Spongebob, even if that was just some sort of backpedaling effort to warn the audience of young late 90s children against the real like negative side effects of fast food, sitting inside and watching television like forever, and idealizing a show about junk food. For real.

Basically, I want to be free to do whatever the hell I want. Some of that is due to my faith. The rest of it is due to real life experiences that make me believe that the people who try to control you generally don’t like to be wrong. Let’s face it: we are all wrong sometimes. I’m not down to play the part if I can’t also tell you when you’re wrong. It’s stupid.

Which is why short stories are seriously the worst. They don’t have anything going for them unless you are boring and have 20 minutes to kill on some bizarre cliff hanger ending that could have been summarized in 10 words or less. I write how I want because why the hell not, and the only classes I’ve really had in this nonsense date back to K-12 and one freshman honors seminar on life narrative writing, which I only took because it was my best option. I liked my teacher. But I don’t want to freaking talk about somebody else’s dumb narrative; I’d like to make my narrative the most baller narrative possible. On the bright side, this way if I turn out to be popular, it makes no stupid difference. It’s like a constant thing you have to bludgeon over the head, this love of money thing. It’s good I don’t try to get rid of it, because it’s not going anywhere. We can all be greedy, selfish bastards together okay? I’m still not okay with getting paid.

It is so dumb! I could probably whip up something and sell it pretty quick if I actually tried, and then I couldn’t have to be a student hourly here and there, come to think of it. But I work because I want to. I could probably get loans if I wanted; actually, I deny loans offered to me every semester by my school and other sources. I don’t want them. I could totally coast my way through college and never do grunt work and become just as entitled as I resent. But that was never my style, not for a second. I want to work with people because I love people, and as long as it doesn’t suck, I’ll just use what I make to cover books, a little rent, and whatever else I legitimately need. I have it great compared with my peers that work 2+ jobs to stay in school, and I’m not taking that for granted for a second, because they certainly wouldn’t. To me, short stories are just there for the extra frills and giggles of buying a $15+ little collection in Barnes and Noble (or wherever, I have no idea), and getting a somethingccchino with cinnamon and then sitting there in lovely slipper socks that I can’t afford and just doing awesome things. Still. I don’t want any of that. Ever. Like, I would borrow someone’s socks for a day. BUT I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED EXTRA FABULOUS SOCKS WHEN YOU CAN JUST BUY THAI FOOD OR SOMETHING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER.

I get it, I’m biased, I could probably be bought pretty easily with good Asian food, for real. But I’m just trying to live within my means as a commodity and I like it! Like, nobody I know does it very well if we’re getting real, and I’d like to be the adult that actually qualifies as an adult by subjective measurement scales that aren’t derived from my dumb Walmart culture. I will always be against stores like Walmart, but I admit, I go there. I like to stroll around and take laps and look at the candy aisle and not buy anything while I’m trapped and my mom and sister are buying shampoo. I would have taken the bikes for a ride long ago, but they have some scary looking people who have buttons on and would probably yell at me. Whatever!

The point of this rant was to cut down short stories. I’m going to call it good. I think I have succeeded. But the whole entire point is that it doesn’t matter! Stick that in your dumb anthology lololololollolollk.

Bye now,

Haley

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

Published by

haleylol

I am a teacher-to-be who loves people. I am not afraid of many things. I like to explain my thoughts logically on a very birds-eye view level--I was born thinking that way. I follow Jesus Christ, and I accept only that label to describe my identity--that I am a child of God, as are infinite others, regardless of their other identities. Christ is my one thing.
View all posts by haleylol